University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Prairie Research Institute, Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS): 2005 to present: Research Quaternary Geochemist; 1999 to 2005: Associate Research Quaternary Geochemist; 1996 to 1999: Assistant Research Quaternary Geochemist.

Professional Affiliations:

American Geophysics Union

The Geological Society of America

American Quaternary Association

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Major Responsibilities:

My research interest is to study paleoclimate changes during the last deglaciation through examining loess-paleosol, dune-wetland, and lacustrine-marl successions in mainly Illinois, United State. The objectives of my research are 1) to establish intra-chronozonal climate records at places progressively moving towards the retreating ice margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet; 2) to understand biogeochemical cycles in these successions for paleoclimate proxy studies. I use radiometric (conventional) and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating technologies for chronology study and use stable isotope geochemistry and other geochemistry and geophysics techniques for developing proxies.

Dune-wetlandsuccession at the Manito site in the middle Illinois River Valley and Loess-paleosol succession at the Keller Farm site in the middle Mississippi River Valley reveal climate changes on intra-chronozonal levels.

Top two panels show the Manito dune site and proxy results and bottom two panels show Keller Farm loess and Bon Harbor (proxy only) loess sites in Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys through collaborating with Kentucky Geological Survey.

We are working on AMS 14C dating on root residue trapped inside of rhizoliths, indicated by arrows, and inner layers of calcified roots or solidified plant-genic CO2, indicated by oval circles, and individual calcified roots in figures below for loess chronology studies.

Interface of loess deposition and paleosol formation during possible last 5 glacial-interglacial cycles.

Stable isotope analyses of calcified rootlets and fungi, known as carbonate rhizoliths: carbon cycling among C3, C4 and fungal biomass in response to a decadal-scale climate changes during the last glacial maximum.

Stable isotope analyses of carbonate rhizoliths: plant carbon cycles and ecosystem response to a decadal climate change during the last glacial maximum.

Millennial-scale climate changes and ENSO variability in Midwest of US during last glaciation.

Stable isotope of organic residue in speleothem and soil ecosystem variation during the past.

Wang H. and Greenberg, S.E. (2007). Reconstructing the response of C3 and C4 plants to decadal-scale climate change during the Late Pleistocene in southern Illinois using isotopic analyses of calcified rootlets. Quaternary Research 67, 136-142.

Wang H., Mason, J.A., and Balsam, W.L. (2006). The importance of both geological and pedological processes in control of grain size and sedimentation rates in Peoria loess. Geoderma 136, 388-400.

US Provisional Patent: Wang, H. (2009), Systems and Processes for Generating Power and for Handling Combustion By-Products. United States Provisional Patent (US Patent Series No: 61/161.659).

Wang, H. (2007). Interactive comment on "Changes in C3/C4 vegetation in the continental interior of the Central Himalayas associated with monsoonal paleoclimatic changes during the last 600 kyr" by M. Mampuku et al. Climate of the Past Discussions 3, 533-536.

Wang, H. (2014). Deglacial Record in the Illinois River Valley Explains Asynchronous Phases of Meltwater Pulses and Clay Mineral Excursions in the Gulf of Mexico. AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 15-19, December 2014. PP41B-1355.

Wang H. (2009), OSL dating of fluvial sand in the glacial Lake Superior near Duluth, MN. Sixth New World Luminescence Dating and Dosimetry Workshop October 22-24, 2009 University of Washington, Seattle.

Wang, H. Stumpf, A.J., Lowell, T.V. (2012), Phase relationship of moisture distribution between the Midwest and Southwest of the United States during the last termination, Abstract PP51B-2128 presented at 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 December.

Grimley, D.A., Wang, H. and Counts, R. (2008), A record of last glacial climate changes and paleoecology from a loess-paleosol record in western Kentucky. The Geological Society of America 42nd Annual Meeting of North-Central Section Evansville, Indiana. Volume 40 No. 5, p. 4.